CN115623497A

CN115623497A - Channel information acquisition method and communication device

Info

Publication number: CN115623497A
Application number: CN202110784799.8A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 刘凤威; 陈雷; 罗晓宇; 向高
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2021-07-12
Filing date: 2021-07-12
Publication date: 2023-01-17
Also published as: KR20240029094A; WO2023284659A1; EP4362530A1

Abstract

The application provides a channel information acquisition method and a communication device. The method comprises the following steps: the network equipment transmits a reference signal to the terminal equipment through a plurality of antenna unit groups, wherein at least two antenna unit groups in the plurality of antenna unit groups belong to one antenna port; the network device receives first information from the terminal device, wherein the first information is used for indicating channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna unit groups. So as to improve the accuracy of the acquired channel information.

Description

Channel information acquisition method and communication device

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of communications, and in particular, to a channel information acquisition method and a communication apparatus.

Background

In a mobile communication system, in order to achieve better transmission performance in a higher frequency band, both a network device and a terminal device may employ (analog) beam forming technology to achieve beam-based communication, and thus, transmission capabilities of uplink and downlink signals can be greatly improved. Because the beams have directivity, beam alignment is required between the terminal device and the network device before data transmission is performed. Beam alignment between the terminal device and the network device may be achieved through a beam management procedure. For example, the terminal device determines a network device transmission beam and a terminal device own reception beam by measuring a downlink signal transmitted by the network device.

However, in the beam management process, the terminal device needs to perform frequent downlink measurement for achieving beam alignment, and the network device needs to transmit a large amount of downlink signals for the terminal device to perform measurement, so that resource overhead and power consumption are large, and the frequent measurement of the terminal device may also cause serious power consumption and heating problems.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a channel information acquisition method and a communication device, which can improve the accuracy of acquiring channel information.

In a first aspect, a channel information obtaining method is provided, which may be executed by a network device or a module (e.g., a chip) configured in (or used for) the network device, and the following description describes that the method is executed by the network device as an example.

The method comprises the following steps: the network equipment transmits a reference signal to the terminal equipment through a plurality of antenna unit groups, wherein at least two antenna unit groups in the plurality of antenna unit groups belong to one antenna port; the network device receives first information from the terminal device, wherein the first information is used for indicating channel information corresponding to the antenna unit groups.

According to the above scheme, the network device groups antenna units (such as antenna array elements) of the antenna port, and transmits the reference signals with the antenna unit group as the granularity, so that the network device can acquire high-precision channel information under the condition of low reference signal resource overhead, that is, can acquire channel information corresponding to an antenna unit set with smaller granularity. Based on the high-precision channel information, a downlink transmission beam (or called downlink analog transmission beam) can be determined, and compared with a mode of acquiring the downlink transmission beam in a beam training mode, the mode can reduce resource overhead, acquire high-precision channel information and improve the accuracy of the acquired channel information.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the channel information corresponding to the plurality of antenna element groups includes phase weighting information corresponding to at least one antenna element group of the plurality of antenna element groups, and the phase weighting information is used for the network device to control phase shifts of phase shifters of the at least one antenna element group.

According to the scheme, the terminal device determines phase weighting information which is recommended to be used by the network device based on the acquired channel information corresponding to the antenna unit group, and notifies the network device, so that the network device can determine the transmission beams based on the phase weighting information, and compared with a mode of determining one transmission beam in the beam training mode by trying to transmit each beam, the resource overhead can be reduced.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the plurality of antenna element groups belong to one antenna port, or one antenna element group of the plurality of antenna element groups belongs to one antenna port.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the multiple antenna unit groups belong to one antenna port, and the network device transmits the reference signal to the terminal device through the multiple antenna unit groups, including: the network device transmits a reference signal to the terminal device in a plurality of time units through the plurality of antenna element groups.

According to the scheme, the network equipment can realize that the plurality of antenna unit groups respectively transmit the reference signals by using the plurality of time units in a time division multiplexing mode.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the network device transmitting, to the terminal device, the reference signal in multiple time units through the multiple antenna element groups includes: the network device transmits a reference signal to the terminal device through one antenna unit group in the plurality of antenna unit groups in one time unit in the plurality of time units, wherein the antenna unit groups for transmitting the reference signal in different time units in the plurality of time units are different.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the network device transmitting, to the terminal device, the reference signal in multiple time units through the multiple antenna element groups includes: the network device sends a reference signal to the terminal device through the multiple antenna unit groups in each of the multiple time units, phase weighting sequences corresponding to different antenna unit groups in the multiple antenna unit groups are orthogonal to each other, and one element in one phase weighting sequence is a phase weighting value corresponding to one antenna unit group in one time unit.

According to the scheme, the network equipment realizes that the plurality of antenna unit groups respectively send the reference signals by adopting a mode of combining time division multiplexing and code division multiplexing, and the time overhead and the resource overhead can be further reduced.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, a time difference between two adjacent time units of the plurality of time units is less than a threshold, or two adjacent time units of the plurality of time units are consecutive in time.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups includes precoding matrix indexes PMIs corresponding to multiple antenna ports, and the multiple antenna ports include the multiple antenna element groups.

According to the above scheme, the terminal device can determine not only the corresponding phase weighting information but also PMIs corresponding to a plurality of antenna ports according to the reference signals transmitted by the plurality of antenna unit groups. The resource overhead and the time overhead caused by the separation of the beam training process and the acquisition process of the digital precoding information can be reduced.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the method further includes: the network device sends configuration information to the terminal device, wherein the configuration information is used for indicating antenna unit groups contained in at least one antenna port of the network device.

According to the scheme, the network equipment can inform the corresponding relation between the antenna port and the antenna unit group of the terminal equipment through the configuration information, so that the terminal equipment and the network equipment can achieve consensus.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the method further includes: the network device receives second information from the terminal device, wherein the second information comprises one or more of the following information of the plurality of antenna unit groups: signal to interference plus noise ratio SINR, reference signal received power RSRP, channel quality indication CQI and/or rank indication RI.

In a second aspect, a channel information obtaining method is provided, and the method may be executed by a terminal device or a module (such as a chip) configured in (or used for) the terminal device, and the method is explained as an example that the method is executed by the terminal device.

The method comprises the following steps: the terminal equipment receives a plurality of reference signals from the network equipment; the terminal device determines channel information corresponding to a plurality of antenna unit groups of the network device according to the plurality of reference signals, wherein at least two antenna unit groups of the plurality of antenna unit groups belong to one antenna port; the terminal device sends first information to the network device, wherein the first information is used for indicating channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna unit groups.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups includes precoding matrix indexes PMIs corresponding to multiple antenna ports, and the multiple antenna ports include the multiple antenna element groups.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the plurality of antenna element groups belong to one antenna port, or one antenna element group of the plurality of antenna element groups belongs to one antenna port.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the multiple antenna unit groups belong to one antenna port, and the terminal device receives multiple reference signals from the network device, including: the terminal device receives the plurality of reference signals from the network device in a plurality of time units.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the receiving, by the terminal device, the plurality of reference signals from the network device in a plurality of time units includes: the terminal device receives a reference signal transmitted by one antenna unit group in a plurality of antenna unit groups from the network device in one time unit in a plurality of time units, wherein the reference signals received by different time units in the plurality of time units are from different antenna unit groups in the plurality of antenna unit groups.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the receiving, by the terminal device, reference signals transmitted by a plurality of antenna element groups from the network device in a plurality of time units includes: the terminal device receives the plurality of reference signals in each of a plurality of time units.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the determining, by the terminal device, channel information corresponding to a plurality of antenna element groups of the network device according to the plurality of reference signals includes: and the terminal equipment determines channel information corresponding to the plurality of antenna unit groups according to the plurality of reference signals, the number of the plurality of antenna unit groups and the weighting sequence corresponding to the plurality of antenna unit groups.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the channel information of the multiple antenna element groups includes weighted combining information corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups, where the weighted combining information is weighted information obtained by combining phase weighting information corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups and PMIs corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups, where the phase weighting information is used by the network device to control phase shifts of the phase shifters of the at least one antenna element group.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the terminal device receives configuration information from the network device, wherein the configuration information is used for indicating an antenna unit group contained in at least one antenna port of the network device.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the terminal device sends second information to the network device, wherein the second information comprises one or more of the following information of the antenna unit groups: signal to interference noise ratio, SINR, reference signal received power, RSRP, channel quality indication, CQI, and/or rank indication, RI.

In a third aspect, a channel information obtaining method is provided, which may be executed by a network device or a module (e.g., a chip) configured in (or used for) the network device, and the following description will be made by taking the method executed by the network device as an example.

The method comprises the following steps: the network equipment sends reference signals to the terminal equipment through a plurality of antenna ports, and the wave beam directions of the reference signals sent by the plurality of antenna ports are the same; the network device receives first information from the terminal device, where the first information is used to indicate phase weighting information corresponding to the multiple antenna ports, and the phase weighting information is used to control phase shifts of phase shifters corresponding to the antenna ports.

With reference to the third aspect, in some implementations of the third aspect, the sending, by the network device, the reference signal to the terminal device through multiple antenna ports includes: the network device transmits a reference signal on a reference signal resource through the plurality of antenna ports.

With reference to the third aspect, in some implementations of the third aspect, the sending, by the network device, the reference signal to the terminal device through multiple antenna ports includes: the network device transmits the reference signal on a plurality of reference signal resources through the plurality of antenna ports, and the reference signal resources for transmitting the reference signal by at least two antenna ports in the plurality of antenna ports are different.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the method further includes: the network device sends configuration information to the terminal device, wherein the configuration information is used for indicating that the beam directions of the reference signals sent on the multiple reference signal resources are the same.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the method further includes: the network device receives second information from the terminal device, wherein the second information comprises one or more of the following information of the plurality of antenna ports: signal to interference noise ratio, SINR, reference signal received power, RSRP, channel quality indication, CQI, and/or rank indication, RI.

In a fourth aspect, a channel information obtaining method is provided, where the method may be executed by a terminal device or a module (e.g., a chip) configured in (or used for) the terminal device, and the method is described as an example where the method is executed by the terminal device.

The method comprises the following steps: the terminal equipment receives a plurality of reference signals from the network equipment; the terminal device determines phase weighting information corresponding to a plurality of antenna ports of the network device according to the plurality of reference signals, wherein the phase weighting information is used for controlling phase shift of phase shifters of the antenna ports; the terminal device sends first information to the network device, wherein the first information is used for indicating phase weighting information corresponding to a plurality of antenna ports of the network device.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, the receiving, by the terminal device, a plurality of reference signals from a network device includes: the terminal device receives a plurality of reference signals from the network device on one reference signal resource, where the one reference signal resource is a reference signal resource corresponding to a plurality of antenna ports.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, the receiving, by the terminal device, a plurality of reference signals from a network device includes: the terminal device receives a plurality of reference signals from the network device on a plurality of reference signal resources, at least two of the plurality of reference signals being carried on different reference signal resources.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in certain implementations of the fourth aspect, the method further includes: the terminal device receives configuration information from the network device, wherein the configuration information is used for indicating that the beam directions of the reference signals transmitted on the multiple reference signal resources are the same.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in certain implementations of the fourth aspect, the method further includes: the terminal device sends second information to the network device, wherein the second information comprises one or more of the following information of the antenna ports: signal to interference plus noise ratio SINR, reference signal received power RSRP, channel quality indication CQI and/or rank indication RI.

In a fifth aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, including:

a transceiving unit, configured to transmit a reference signal to a terminal device through a plurality of antenna element groups, where at least two antenna element groups of the plurality of antenna element groups belong to one antenna port; the receiving and sending unit is further configured to receive first information from the terminal device, where the first information is used to indicate channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna unit groups; and the processing unit is used for determining the channel information corresponding to the plurality of antenna unit groups according to the first information.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in certain implementations of the fifth aspect, the channel information corresponding to the plurality of antenna element groups includes phase weighting information corresponding to at least one antenna element group of the plurality of antenna element groups, the phase weighting information being used by the network device to control phase shifts of phase shifters of the at least one antenna element group.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in certain implementations of the fifth aspect, the plurality of antenna element groups belong to one antenna port, or one antenna element group of the plurality of antenna element groups belongs to one antenna port.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in certain implementations of the fifth aspect, the plurality of antenna element groups belong to one antenna port, and the transceiving unit is specifically configured to transmit the reference signal to the terminal device in a plurality of time units through the plurality of antenna element groups.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in certain implementations of the fifth aspect, the transceiving unit is specifically configured to transmit the reference signal to the terminal device through one antenna element group of the multiple antenna element groups in one time element of the multiple time elements, where the antenna element groups for transmitting the reference signal in different time elements of the multiple time elements are different.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in certain implementations of the fifth aspect, the transceiver unit is specifically configured to transmit, to the terminal device, a reference signal through the multiple antenna element groups in each of the multiple time elements, where phase weighting sequences corresponding to different antenna element groups in the multiple antenna element groups are orthogonal to each other, and an element in one of the phase weighting sequences is a phase weighting value corresponding to one antenna element group in one time element.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in certain implementations of the fifth aspect, a time difference between two adjacent time units of the plurality of time units is less than a threshold value, or two adjacent time units of the plurality of time units are consecutive in time.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in some implementations of the fifth aspect, the channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups includes precoding matrix indexes PMIs corresponding to multiple antenna ports, and the multiple antenna ports include the multiple antenna element groups.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in some implementations of the fifth aspect, the transceiving unit is further configured to send, to the terminal device, configuration information, where the configuration information is used to indicate an antenna unit group included in at least one antenna port of the network device.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in some implementations of the fifth aspect, the transceiving unit is further configured to receive second information from the terminal device, where the second information includes one or more of the following information of the plurality of antenna element groups: signal to interference plus noise ratio SINR, reference signal received power RSRP, channel quality indication CQI and/or rank indication RI.

In a sixth aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, including: a transceiving unit for receiving a plurality of reference signals from a network device; a processing unit, configured to determine channel information corresponding to multiple antenna element groups of the network device according to the multiple reference signals, where at least two antenna element groups of the multiple antenna element groups belong to one antenna port; the transceiving unit is further configured to send first information to the network device, where the first information is used to indicate channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in some implementations of the sixth aspect, the channel information of the multiple antenna element groups includes precoding matrix indexes PMIs corresponding to multiple antenna ports, and the multiple antenna ports include the multiple antenna element groups.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in some implementations of the sixth aspect, the plurality of antenna element groups belong to one antenna port, or one antenna element group of the plurality of antenna element groups belongs to one antenna port.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in certain implementations of the sixth aspect, the plurality of antenna element groups belong to one antenna port, and the transceiver unit is specifically configured to receive the plurality of reference signals from the network device in a plurality of time units.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in certain implementations of the sixth aspect, the transceiving unit is specifically configured to receive, in one of a plurality of time units, the reference signal transmitted by one of a plurality of antenna element groups from the network device, where the reference signal received by different ones of the plurality of time units is from different ones of the plurality of antenna element groups.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in certain implementations of the sixth aspect, the transceiving unit is specifically configured to receive the plurality of reference signals in each of a plurality of time units.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in certain implementations of the sixth aspect, the processing unit is specifically configured to determine the channel information of the multiple antenna element groups according to the multiple reference signals, the number of the multiple antenna element groups, and the weighting sequences corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in some implementations of the sixth aspect, the channel information of the multiple antenna element groups includes digital weighting information of the antenna ports, where the digital weighting information is used by the network device to perform digital signal processing on signals to be transmitted at the antenna ports to which the multiple antenna element groups belong.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in certain implementations of the sixth aspect, the channel information of the multiple antenna element groups includes weighted combining information corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups, where the weighted combining information is weighting information obtained by combining phase weighting information corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups and PMIs corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups, and the phase weighting information is used by the network device to control phase shifts of the phase shifters of the at least one antenna element group.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in certain implementations of the sixth aspect, the transceiver unit is specifically configured to further receive configuration information from the network device, where the configuration information is used to indicate an antenna unit group included in at least one antenna port of the network device.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in some implementations of the sixth aspect, the transceiving unit is further configured to transmit second information to the network device, the second information including one or more of the following information of the plurality of antenna element groups: signal to interference noise ratio, SINR, reference signal received power, RSRP, channel quality indication, CQI, and/or rank indication, RI.

In a seventh aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, including: the receiving and sending unit is used for sending reference signals to the terminal equipment through a plurality of antenna ports, and the wave beam directions of the reference signals sent by the plurality of antenna ports are the same; the transceiving unit is further configured to receive first information from the terminal device, where the first information is used to indicate phase weighting information corresponding to the multiple antenna ports, and the phase weighting information is used to control phase shifts of phase shifters corresponding to the antenna ports; and the processing unit is used for determining phase weighting information corresponding to a plurality of antenna ports according to the first information.

With reference to the seventh aspect, in some implementations of the seventh aspect, the transceiver unit is specifically configured to transmit the reference signal on one reference signal resource through the multiple antenna ports.

With reference to the seventh aspect, in some implementations of the seventh aspect, the transceiver unit is specifically configured to transmit the reference signal on multiple reference signal resources through the multiple antenna ports, where reference signal resources for transmitting the reference signal by at least two of the multiple antenna ports are different.

With reference to the seventh aspect, in certain implementations of the seventh aspect, the method further includes: the transceiver unit is specifically configured to send configuration information to the terminal device, where the configuration information is used to indicate that the beam directions of the reference signals sent on the multiple reference signal resources are the same.

With reference to the seventh aspect, in certain implementations of the seventh aspect, the method further includes: the network device receives second information from the terminal device, wherein the second information comprises one or more of the following information of the plurality of antenna ports: signal to interference noise ratio, SINR, reference signal received power, RSRP, channel quality indication, CQI, and/or rank indication, RI.

In an eighth aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, including: a transceiving unit for receiving a plurality of reference signals from a network device; a processing unit, configured to determine phase weighting information corresponding to multiple antenna ports of the network device according to the multiple reference signals, where the phase weighting information is used to control phase shifts of phase shifters of the antenna ports; the transceiving unit is further configured to send first information to the network device, where the first information is used to indicate phase weighting information corresponding to multiple antenna ports of the network device.

With reference to the eighth aspect, in some implementations of the eighth aspect, the transceiver unit is specifically configured to receive multiple reference signals from the network device on one reference signal resource, where the one reference signal resource is a reference signal resource corresponding to multiple antenna ports.

With reference to the eighth aspect, in certain implementations of the eighth aspect, the transceiver unit is specifically configured to receive a plurality of reference signals from the network device on a plurality of reference signal resources, at least two of the plurality of reference signals being carried on different reference signal resources.

With reference to the eighth aspect, in some implementations of the eighth aspect, the transceiver unit is further configured to receive configuration information from the network device, where the configuration information is used to indicate that beam directions of the reference signals transmitted on the multiple reference signal resources are the same.

With reference to the eighth aspect, in some implementations of the eighth aspect, the transceiving unit is further configured to transmit second information to the network device, where the second information includes one or more of the following information of the plurality of antenna ports: signal to interference noise ratio, SINR, reference signal received power, RSRP, channel quality indication, CQI, and/or rank indication, RI.

In a ninth aspect, a communications apparatus is provided that includes a processor. The processor may implement the method in any one of the possible implementations of the first to fourth aspects and the first to fourth aspects described above.

Optionally, the communication device further comprises a memory, and the processor is coupled to the memory and configured to execute instructions in the memory to implement the method in any possible implementation manner of the first to fourth aspects and the first to fourth aspects. Optionally, the communication device further comprises a communication interface, the processor being coupled to the communication interface. In the embodiment of the present application, the communication interface may be a transceiver, a pin, a circuit, a bus, a module, or other types of communication interfaces, and is not limited.

In one implementation, the communication interface may be a transceiver, or an input/output interface.

In another implementation, the communication device may be a chip, the communication interface may be an input/output interface, and the processor may be a logic circuit.

Alternatively, the transceiver may be a transmit-receive circuit. Alternatively, the input/output interface may be an input/output circuit.

In a tenth aspect, there is provided a processor comprising: input circuit, output circuit and processing circuit. The processing circuit is configured to receive a signal through the input circuit and transmit a signal through the output circuit, so that the processor performs the method of any one of the possible implementations of the first to fourth aspects and the first to fourth aspects.

In a specific implementation process, the processor may be one or more chips, the input circuit may be an input pin, the output circuit may be an output pin, and the processing circuit may be a transistor, a gate circuit, a flip-flop, various logic circuits, and the like. The input signal received by the input circuit may be received and input by, for example and without limitation, a receiver, the signal output by the output circuit may be output to and transmitted by a transmitter, for example and without limitation, and the input circuit and the output circuit may be the same circuit that functions as the input circuit and the output circuit, respectively, at different times. The embodiment of the present application does not limit the specific implementation manner of the processor and various circuits.

In an eleventh aspect, there is provided a computer program product comprising: a computer program (which may also be referred to as code, or instructions), which when executed, causes a computer to perform the method of any one of the possible implementations of the first to fourth aspects and the first to fourth aspects.

In a twelfth aspect, a computer-readable storage medium is provided, which stores a computer program (which may also be referred to as code or instructions) that, when executed on a computer, causes the computer to perform the method of any one of the possible implementations of the first to fourth aspects and the first to fourth aspects.

In a thirteenth aspect, a communication system is provided, comprising the aforementioned at least one network device and at least one terminal device.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic architecture of a communication system suitable for use in embodiments of the present application;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of multiple antenna ports of a network device provided herein;

fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of an antenna array of a network device provided by the present application including 4 sub-arrays;

fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of an antenna array of a network device provided by the present application including 2 sub-arrays;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a beam training process provided herein;

fig. 6 is a schematic flow chart of a channel information acquisition method provided in the present application;

fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of an antenna element grouping in an antenna port provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 8 is a schematic diagram illustrating each antenna port being a group of antenna elements according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 9 and 9a are schematic diagrams of each antenna port divided into two antenna unit groups according to the embodiment of the present application;

fig. 10, fig. 10a, and fig. 10b are schematic diagrams illustrating that each antenna port is divided into four antenna element groups according to the embodiment of the present application;

fig. 11 is a schematic diagram illustrating a corresponding relationship between an antenna port and a virtual port according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 12 is a schematic diagram of a channel information acquiring method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 13 is another schematic diagram of a channel information acquiring method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 14 is a further schematic diagram of a channel information acquiring method provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 15 is another schematic flowchart of a channel information acquiring method provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 16 is a schematic diagram of transmitting N reference signals at different time instants by using different antenna arrays according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 17 is a schematic diagram of transmitting M reference signals at different time instants by using different antenna arrays according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 18 is a schematic block diagram of a communication device provided by an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 19 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 20 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

The technical solution in the present application will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The technical scheme of the embodiment of the application can be applied to various communication systems, for example: a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, an LTE Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) system, an LTE Time Division Duplex (TDD), a fifth generation (5 th generation,5 g) communication system, a future communication system (e.g., a sixth generation (6 g) communication system), or a system in which multiple communication systems are integrated, and the embodiments of the present invention are not limited. Among them, 5G may also be referred to as New Radio (NR).

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system suitable for use in embodiments of the present application.

As shown in fig. 1, the communication system 100 may include at least one network device, such as the network device 110 shown in fig. 1. The communication system 100 may also include at least one terminal device, such as the terminal device 120 shown in fig. 1. Network device 110 and terminal device 120 may communicate over a wireless link.

In this embodiment, the communication between the network device and the terminal device includes: the network equipment sends downlink signals to the terminal equipment, and/or the terminal equipment sends uplink signals to the network equipment. Signals may also be replaced with information or data, etc.

In the embodiment of the present application, the network device may have an architecture or a function of Analog Beamforming (ABF) or Hybrid Beamforming (HBF). But the application is not limited thereto.

As shown in fig. 2, the network device may include a plurality of antenna ports, and the antenna ports may also be referred to as ports, digital ports, CSI-RS antenna ports, or the like, which is not limited in this application. Each antenna port of the network device corresponds to one digital processing channel and is used for outputting a signal stream processed by the digital processing channel. The digital processing channel corresponding to one antenna port is connected to multiple antenna elements, and it can be understood that one antenna port includes multiple antenna elements connected to the data processing channel corresponding to the antenna port. Each antenna element may be connected to a phase shifter (or a phase shifter may also be referred to as a phase shifter), and the digital processing channels corresponding to different antenna ports may be connected to different or the same array element sets. In an implementation, digital processing channels corresponding to different antenna ports may connect different antenna sub-arrays (one sub-array includes at least one antenna element) and/or different antenna polarization directions. The antenna sub-array is part of an antenna array of the network device. The antenna array of the network device may be divided into a plurality of sub-arrays, each sub-array connecting the digital processing channels corresponding to two antenna ports, corresponding to different antenna polarization directions.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of an antenna array of a network device including 4 sub-arrays, as shown in fig. 3, each sub-array is connected to two antenna ports, specifically, a first polarization direction and a second polarization direction of each sub-array are respectively connected to one antenna port, and the network device may include 8 antenna ports, each antenna port being configured to output a signal stream output by one digital processing channel. Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of an antenna array of a network device including 2 sub-arrays, as shown in fig. 4, each sub-array is connected to two antenna ports, specifically, a first polarization direction and a second polarization direction of each sub-array are respectively connected to one antenna port, and the network device may include 4 antenna ports, each antenna port being configured to output a signal stream output by one digital processing channel.

The technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the application can be applied to various communication scenes, for example, one or more of the following communication scenes: eMBB communication, URLLC, machine Type Communication (MTC), MTC, device-to-device (D2D) communication, vehicle-to-outside (V2X) communication, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication, vehicle-to-internet (V2N), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P), and internet of things (IoT), etc. Optionally, the mtc may include one or more of the following communications: industrial wireless sensor or network (IWSN), in video surveillance (video surveillance) scenarios, with wearable devices, and so on.

The terminal device related to the embodiment of the application can also be called a terminal. The terminal may be a device having a wireless transceiving function. The terminal may be deployed on land, including indoors, outdoors, hand-held, and/or in-vehicle; can also be deployed on the water surface (such as a ship and the like); and may also be deployed in the air (e.g., airplanes, balloons, satellites, etc.). The terminal equipment may be User Equipment (UE). The UE includes a handheld device, an in-vehicle device, a wearable device, or a computing device with wireless communication capabilities. Illustratively, the UE may be a mobile phone (mobile phone), a tablet computer, or a computer with wireless transceiving function. The terminal device may also be a Virtual Reality (VR) terminal device, an Augmented Reality (AR) terminal device, a wireless terminal in industrial control, a wireless terminal in unmanned driving, a wireless terminal in telemedicine, a wireless terminal in smart grid, a wireless terminal in smart city (smart city), and/or a wireless terminal in smart home (smart home), and so on.

The network device related to the embodiment of the present application includes a Base Station (BS), which may be a device deployed in a radio access network and capable of performing wireless communication with a terminal device. The base station may have various forms such as a macro base station, a micro base station, a relay station, or an access point. The base station related to the embodiment of the present application may be a base station in a 5G system, a base station in an LTE system, or a base station in another system, which is not limited. Herein, a base station in a 5G system may also be referred to as a Transmission Reception Point (TRP) or a next generation Node B (generation Node B, gNB, or gnnodeb). The base station may be an integrated base station, or may be a base station separated into multiple network elements, which is not limited. For example, a base station is a base station with a Centralized Unit (CU) and a Distributed Unit (DU) separated, that is, the base station includes the CU and the DU.

In the embodiments of the present application, "/" may indicate a relationship in which the objects associated before and after are "or", for example, a/B may indicate a or B; "and/or" may be used to describe that there are three relationships associated with an object, e.g., a and/or B, which may represent: a exists alone, A and B exist simultaneously, and B exists alone, wherein A and B can be singular or plural. For convenience in describing the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, in the embodiments of the present application, terms such as "first" and "second" may be used to distinguish technical features having the same or similar functions. The terms "first", "second", and the like do not necessarily limit the number and execution order, and the terms "first", "second", and the like do not necessarily differ. In the embodiments of the present application, the words "exemplary" or "such as" are used to indicate examples, illustrations or illustrations, and any embodiment or design described as "exemplary" or "e.g.," should not be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments or designs. The use of the terms "exemplary" or "such as" are intended to present relevant concepts in a concrete fashion for ease of understanding.

In the embodiments of the present application, at least one (kind) may also be described as one (kind) or more (kinds), and a plurality (kind) may be two (kind), three (kind), four (kind) or more (kind), which is not limited in the present application.

For a better understanding of the embodiments of the present application, the terms referred to herein are briefly described below.

1. Beam (beam): a beam is a communication resource. The beam may be a wide beam, or a narrow beam, or other type of beam. The technique of forming the beam may be a beamforming technique or other technical means. The beamforming technique may be embodied as a digital beamforming technique, an analog beamforming technique, a hybrid digital/analog beamforming technique. Different beams may be considered different spatial resources. The communication devices may transmit the same information or different information through different beams. Alternatively, the communication device may treat a plurality of beams having the same or similar characteristics as one beam.

One beam may be implemented by one or more antenna ports for the communication device to transmit data channels, control channels, sounding signals, and the like. For example, the transmit beam may refer to the distribution of signal strength formed in different spatial directions after the signal is transmitted through the antenna, and the receive beam may refer to the distribution of the antenna array strengthening or weakening the reception of the wireless signal in different spatial directions. It is to be understood that the one or more antenna ports forming one beam may also be seen as one set of antenna ports. In the current NR protocol, downlink beams may be represented by a quasi co-located (QCL) relationship of antenna ports (antenna ports), specifically, signals of two identical beams have a QCL relationship with respect to Spatial Rx parameters (QCL-Type D: { Spatial Rx parameter } in the protocol; the uplink beam may be embodied by spatial relationship information (spatial relationship information). The beam may be represented by identification information of various signals, such as a resource (ID) of a CSI-RS, a time domain index of a Synchronization Signal (SS)/Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH) block SSB, a resource ID of a sounding signal (SRS), a resource ID of a tracking signal (TRS), and the like.

2. Beam management

The terminal device and the base station may perform beam management through a channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS), thereby implementing beam alignment for transmitting and receiving. The beam management includes beam training, and the following behavior example describes a CSI-RS based beam training process.

The base station can determine a proper downlink transmission beam through beam training, the base station can configure N CSI-RS resources for the terminal equipment, and the base station can adopt different beams to transmit CSI-RS on the N CSI-RS resources in the beam training process. The terminal device measures the N CSI-RS resources and obtains a measurement result (e.g., layer 1-reference signal receiving power (L1-RSRP) or layer 1-signal to interference plus noise ratio (L1-SINR)), and according to the measurement result, the terminal may report a plurality of CSI-RS resource identifiers and corresponding (reference signal receiving power, RSRP), so that the base station may determine an appropriate downlink transmission beam and/or a corresponding uplink reception beam.

The terminal device needs to determine the optimal receive beam through beam scanning. For example, the terminal may receive a particular CSI-RS resource using different receive beams to determine an optimal receive beam corresponding to a particular transmit beam of the base station. Typically, the terminal device selects and maintains its receive beam on its own.

Before downlink data transmission, the base station and the terminal equipment execute the beam training process to determine a downlink transmission beam and/or an uplink receiving beam. The base station determines downlink transmission beams, namely analog weights of a plurality of phase shifters corresponding to the array elements of the antenna port. The beams trained by the beam training procedure described above may be referred to as analog beams.

When the number of digital ports of the base station is greater than 1, the plurality of phase shifters corresponding to different digital ports may select the same or different analog weights.

Fig. 5 is a simple example of a beam training process. The base station transmits the CSI-RS by using 32 beams, the terminal device receives the CSI-RS from the base station by using 4 beams, and the terminal device can determine an optimal transmit-receive beam pair after 128 (32 times 4) measurements, namely an optimal transmit beam of the base station and an optimal receive beam of the terminal device.

3. Channel State Information (CSI) acquisition procedure

Take the CSI-RS based downlink CSI acquisition procedure as an example. After the base station and the terminal equipment complete the beam training process, the base station acquires downlink transmission beam information, and the terminal equipment acquires downlink reception beam information. The base station may transmit the CSI-RS using the transmit beam obtained by the beam training process. It should be understood that the CSI-RS is used to acquire CSI (CSI-RS for CSI acquisition). Correspondingly, the terminal equipment receives the CSI-RS by adopting a receiving beam knot obtained in a beam training process, acquires corresponding CSI based on the received CSI-RS and feeds the CSI-RS back to the base station. The CSI fed back by the terminal device to the base station includes one or more items that may include, but are not limited to, CQI, RI, PMI.

That is to say, the base station determines the downlink transmission beam through the beam training process, and needs to further determine the precoding scheme of the digital port after obtaining the analog weight corresponding to the downlink transmission beam. The base station may obtain CSI through the CSI obtaining procedure, and determine the precoding scheme of the digital port. When the base station has N digital channels, a typical precoding determination procedure is as follows (assuming CSI-RS based channel measurement and feedback mechanism):

-the base station transmitting the CSI-RS through N antenna ports, the N antenna ports corresponding to the N digital processing channels. Wherein, the analog beam corresponding to each antenna port or digital processing channel can be determined by the beam management process;

-the terminal device measures the downlink channel based on the received CSI-RS from the base station and obtains CSI information for downlink transmission. The CSI information may include, but is not limited to, PMI information, RI information, CQI information, and the like;

the terminal equipment reports the CSI to the base station;

the base station determines a precoding scheme according to the CSI information, for example, determines a precoding matrix for transmitting data, maps the data of v streams to N digital processing channels, and transmits from the antenna array via the antenna ports.

To sum up, currently, a beam management process and a CSI acquisition process are performed independently, both processes need to send downlink CSI-RS, and the CSI-RS resource overhead is large, the present application proposes to group antenna units (such as antenna array elements) of an antenna port, and transmit reference signals with antenna unit groups as granularity, so that a network device can acquire high-precision channel information under the condition of small reference signal resource overhead, that is, can acquire channel information corresponding to an antenna unit set with smaller granularity. Based on the high-precision channel information, a downlink transmission beam (or called downlink analog transmission beam) can be determined, and compared with a mode of acquiring the downlink transmission beam by a beam training mode, the mode can reduce resource overhead and acquire the high-precision channel information.

The following describes a channel information acquisition method provided in an embodiment of the present application with reference to the drawings.

Fig. 6 is a schematic flow chart of a channel information obtaining method 600 according to an embodiment of the present application. The channel measurement method may include, but is not limited to, the following steps:

s601, the network device sends a reference signal to the terminal device through a plurality of antenna element groups, where at least two antenna element groups in the plurality of antenna element groups belong to one antenna port.

The network device can group a plurality of antenna units included in one antenna port of the network device, and the network device sends the reference signal through a plurality of antenna unit groups grouped by the antenna port, so that the terminal device can acquire more accurate channel information.

For example, fig. 7, the network device includes 2 antenna ports and the terminal device includes 2 receive antennas. The network device may send the reference signal to the terminal device through 2 antenna ports, and the terminal device may acquire a 2 × 2 channel matrix based on the received reference signal. However, if the antenna units included in each antenna port of the network device are grouped, as shown in (b) of fig. 7, the antenna units included in each antenna port of the network device are divided into two antenna unit groups. The network device sends the reference signal to the terminal device through the 4 antenna element groups, and the terminal device can obtain a 2 × 4 channel matrix based on the received reference signal. The terminal equipment can acquire higher-precision channel information.

The antenna unit group includes at least one antenna unit, the antenna unit may be an antenna array element, and the antenna unit group may be referred to as a virtual port, but the application is not limited thereto. Alternatively, each virtual port corresponds to an array component or a sub-array component, which means that each virtual port includes a part of antenna elements of an array or a sub-array.

Alternatively, one antenna port may include one antenna element group, that is, the antenna elements included in one antenna port are one antenna element group.

For example, the network device shown in fig. 8 includes an antenna array including 32 elements, and two polarization directions correspond to two antenna ports respectively, that is, a first polarization direction corresponds to one antenna port, and a second polarization direction corresponds to another antenna port, and the network device may notify the terminal device that the antenna element included in one antenna port is one antenna element group, that is, the antenna array includes antenna element groups 1 and 2 as shown in the figure, but is not limited to this.

Alternatively, one antenna port may include two antenna element groups.

For example, the antenna array of the network device shown in fig. 9 includes 32 array elements, and each polarization direction corresponds to one antenna port, where two vertical columns of antenna elements included in one antenna port shown in fig. 9 may be divided into one antenna element group, that is, two vertical columns of the same polarization direction may be divided into one antenna element group, and each antenna port includes 2 antenna element groups, for example, one antenna port corresponding to the first polarization direction includes antenna element groups 1 and 3, and one antenna port corresponding to the second polarization direction includes antenna element groups 2 and 4.

For example, as shown in fig. 9a, in the antenna array including 32 array elements, two horizontal rows of antenna elements included in one antenna port may be divided into one antenna element group, that is, two vertical rows in the same polarization direction may be divided into one antenna element group, and each antenna port includes 2 antenna element groups, for example, one antenna port corresponding to the first polarization direction includes antenna element groups 1 and 3, and one antenna port corresponding to the second polarization direction includes antenna element groups 2 and 4.

Alternatively, one antenna port may include four antenna element groups.

For example, in an antenna array of a network device including 32 array elements, two polarization directions correspond to two antenna ports, and antenna elements may be grouped in units of columns of antenna elements as shown in fig. 10, where an antenna element in one polarization direction in each column is an antenna element group included in an antenna port corresponding to the polarization direction. Or, as shown in fig. 10a, antenna element grouping may be performed in units of columns of antenna elements, where an antenna element in one polarization direction in each row is an antenna element group included in an antenna port corresponding to the polarization direction. Still alternatively, as shown in fig. 10b, two rows of antenna elements with the same polarization direction intersecting with two columns of antenna elements may be a group. It should be noted that the dashed boxes in fig. 10, 10a, and 10b include two antenna element groups, where 4 antenna elements in one polarization direction form one group.

Optionally, the network device may send configuration information to the terminal device, where the configuration information is used to indicate an antenna unit group included in at least one antenna port of the network device. Or, the configuration information is used to indicate a corresponding relationship between the antenna ports and the antenna unit groups, or, the configuration information is used to indicate grouping information of the antenna units included in at least one antenna port.

Accordingly, the terminal device receives the configuration information from the network device, and determines the corresponding relationship between the antenna port of the network device and the antenna unit group based on the configuration information.

Optionally, the terminal device may determine a corresponding relationship between the antenna port and the antenna unit group according to the port number corresponding to the reference signal resource.

For example, the reference signal is a CSI-RS, the network device includes 4 antenna ports, the network device configures a CSI-RS resource corresponding to 8 ports for the terminal device through the configuration information, the terminal device determines that the 8 ports corresponding to the CSI-RS resource are virtual ports (i.e., antenna element groups), each antenna port includes 2 virtual ports, and the numbers sequentially correspond to each other, as shown in fig. 11, the terminal device may determine that, of the 4 antenna ports of the network device, an antenna port 1 includes virtual ports 1 and 2; the antenna port 2 comprises virtual ports 3, 4; the antenna port 3 comprises virtual ports 5, 6; the antenna ports 4 comprise virtual ports 7, 8. But the application is not limited thereto.

For another example, the ports of the CSI-RS resource configured by the network device are numbered from 3000, and for example, when one CSI-RS resource includes 4 antenna ports, the numbers of the antenna ports of the CSI-RS resource may be {3000,3001,3002,3003}, respectively. The numbers of antenna element groups (i.e., the numbers of virtual ports) included in each antenna port where the network device may configure the CSI-RS resource are shown in table 1, the numbers of two antenna element groups included in the antenna port 3000 are 3000-1 and 3000-2, respectively, the numbers of two antenna element groups included in the antenna port 3001 are 3001-1 and 3001-2, respectively, the numbers of two antenna element groups included in the antenna port 3002 are 3002-1 and 3002-2, respectively, and the numbers of two antenna element groups included in the antenna port 3003 are 3003-1 and 3003-2, respectively, but the present application is not limited thereto.

TABLE 1

Alternatively, as shown in table 2, the numbers of the two antenna element groups included in the antenna port 3000 are 300001 and 300002, the numbers of the two antenna element groups included in the antenna port 3001 are 300101 and 300102, the numbers of the two antenna element groups included in the antenna port 3002 are 300201 and 300202, and the numbers of the two antenna element groups included in the antenna port 3003 are 300301 and 300302, respectively.

It should be understood that the numbering manner of the antenna unit groups is only an illustration, and the antenna unit groups included in the antenna port may also be identified in other manners, which is not limited in the present application.

TABLE 2

How the network device transmits the reference signal to the terminal device through the plurality of antenna element groups is described below, including but not limited to the following embodiments.

In the following embodiments, an embodiment in which a network device transmits a reference signal by a plurality of antenna unit groups will be described, taking an example in which a plurality of antenna unit groups belong to one antenna port. When the network device includes multiple antenna ports, each antenna port may transmit a reference signal to the terminal device in the following manner.

The network device may use multiple time cells to implement the transmission of the reference signal to the terminal device through multiple antenna element groups of one antenna port. That is, the network device transmits the reference signal to the terminal device in a plurality of time units through a plurality of antenna unit groups of one antenna port.

In one embodiment, the network device transmits the reference signal to the terminal device through one of the plurality of antenna element groups in one of a plurality of time units, wherein the antenna element groups transmitting the reference signal in different time units in the plurality of time units are different.

For example, as shown in fig. 12, one antenna port of the network device includes two antenna element groups, an antenna element group 1 and an antenna element group 2. The network device may send the reference signal to the terminal device through the antenna unit group 1 in the first time unit, for example, the network device may turn off the switch of the antenna unit group 2, turn on the switch of the antenna unit group 1, and send the reference signal through the antenna unit group 1, but the application is not limited thereto. The network device may transmit the reference signal to the terminal device through the antenna unit group 2 in the second time unit, for example, the network device may turn off the switch of the antenna unit group 1, turn on the switch of the antenna unit group 2, and transmit the reference signal through the antenna unit group 2, but the application is not limited thereto. Accordingly, the terminal device may receive the reference signal from the network device in the first time unit and the second time unit. The terminal device may determine, according to the two received reference signals, channel information corresponding to a channel between the antenna unit group 1 of the network device and the terminal device, and channel information corresponding to a channel between the antenna unit group 2 of the network device and the terminal device, respectively.

The manner in which the network device transmits the reference signal through the multiple antenna element groups of one antenna port in this example may be referred to as time-division multiplexing (TDM).

By way of example and not limitation, the channel information in this application may be channel state information, CSI.

As another example, as shown in fig. 13, one antenna port of the network device includes two antenna element groups, i.e., an antenna element group 1 and an antenna element group 2. The network device may transmit a reference signal to the terminal device through the antenna unit group 1 and transmit a reference signal to the other direction through the antenna unit group 2 in the first time unit. For example, directions of the antenna unit groups 1 and 2 for transmitting the reference signals may be different, and spatial orthogonality may be formed, so that the terminal device can only receive the reference signal transmitted by the antenna port group 1 in the first time unit, and cannot receive the reference signal transmitted by the antenna unit group 2. The network device may transmit the reference signal to the terminal device through the antenna unit group 2 in the second time unit, and transmit the reference signal to the other direction through the antenna unit group 2. And the terminal equipment can only receive the reference signal transmitted by the antenna port group 2 in the second time unit and cannot receive the reference signal transmitted by the antenna unit group 1.

The manner in which the network device transmits the reference signal through the multiple antenna unit groups of one antenna port in this example may be referred to as a time-division multiplexing (TDM) manner, or a multiplexing manner in which time-division (TD) and space-division (SD) are combined.

In another embodiment, the network device sends the reference signal to the terminal device through the multiple antenna unit groups in each of multiple time units, orthogonal weighting sequences corresponding to different antenna unit groups in the multiple antenna unit groups are orthogonal to each other, and one element in one orthogonal weighting sequence is a phase weighting coefficient adopted by one antenna unit group in one time unit.

This scheme may be referred to as a scheme combining time division multiplexing (CDM), i.e., a TD-CDM scheme. For example, as shown in fig. 14, one antenna port of the network device includes two antenna element groups, an antenna element group 1 and an antenna element group 2. The network equipment transmits a reference signal to the terminal equipment through the antenna unit group 1 and the antenna unit group 2 in a first time unit, wherein the phase weighting sequence corresponding to the antenna unit group 1 in the first time unit is W ₁ ＝[w ₁₁ ，w ₁₂ ，...] ^T The phase weighting sequence corresponding to the antenna element group 2 is W ₂ ＝[w ₂₁ ，w ₂₂ ，...] ^T The dimension of the antenna element group 1 in the corresponding phase weighting sequence (i.e., the number of elements included in the phase weighting sequence) is equal to the number of elements included in the antenna element group.

Suppose that the reference signals transmitted by the antenna ports to which the antenna unit group 1 and the antenna unit group 2 belong are represented as x [1]]Then, the transmission signals of the antenna unit group 1 and the antenna unit group 2 in the first time unit can be respectively denoted as W1 · x [1]]And W2. X [1]]. If the terminal device receives signals from the network device through a single antenna or a single channel, the channels from the antenna port group 1 and the antenna port group 2 to the terminal device may be respectively denoted as h ₁ ＝[h ₁₁ ，h ₁₂ ，...]And h ₂ ＝[h ₂₁ ，h ₂₂ ，...]. The receiving signals from the antenna unit group 1 and the antenna unit group 2 to the terminal device are respectively: y1[ 1]]＝h ₁ ·W ₁ X and y2[ 2]]＝h ₂ ·W ₂ X. The signal received by the terminal device is the superposition of two received signals from the antenna unit group 1 and the antenna unit group 2, as shown in equation (1).

y[1]＝y1[1]+y2[1]＝h ₁ ·W ₁ ·x[1]+h ₂ ·W ₂ ·x[1] (1)

The network device sends a reference signal x [2] to the terminal device through the antenna unit group 1 and the antenna unit group 2 in a second time unit]Wherein the phase weighting sequence corresponding to the antenna unit group 1 in the second time unit is W ₁ The phase weighting sequence corresponding to the antenna element group 2 is-W ₂ The signal received by the terminal device is the superposition of two received signals from the antenna unit group 1 and the antenna unit group 2:

y[2]＝y1[2]+y2[2]＝h ₁ ·W ₁ ·x[2]-h ₂ ·W ₂ ·x[2] (2)

wherein x 1 and x 2 are both known reference signals, and x 1 and x 2 may be the same or different. By removing x in combination with the above equations (1) and (2), an initial channel estimate can be obtained.

h[1]＝h ₁ ·W ₁ +h ₂ ·W ₂

h[2]＝h ₁ ·W ₁ -h ₂ ·W ₂

The terminal device decodes the time domain CDM, and can estimate the channels h1 · w1 and h1 · w2 as follows.

h[1]+h[2]＝2·h ₁ ·W ₁

h[1]-h[2]＝2·h ₂ ·W ₂

Because the terminal device needs to estimate the channel h after the beam forming from the antenna unit group 1 and the antenna unit group 2 to the receiving antenna ₁ ·W ₁ And h ₂ ·W ₂ Therefore, the terminal device does not need to estimate h separately ₁ And h ₂ . The terminal device can connect W ₁ And W ₂ As part of the channel information obtained from the channel measurements. Then the terminalThe device may consider the transmission signals of the network device in the first time unit and the second time unit as:

z[1]＝x[1]+x[1]

z[2]＝x[2]-x[2]

from the above reasoning, the transmission reference signals of the antenna unit groups 1 are [ x 1, x 2] and the transmission reference signals of the antenna unit groups 2 are [ x 1, -x 2] in two time units, so the orthogonal weighting sequence corresponding to the antenna unit group 1 is [1,1] and the orthogonal weighting sequence corresponding to the antenna unit group 2 is [1, -1]. The orthogonal weighting sequence corresponding to antenna element group 1 is orthogonal to the orthogonal weighting sequence corresponding to antenna element group 2.

The orthogonal weighting sequences corresponding to the antenna element groups may be referred to as CDM sequences or Orthogonal Cover Codes (OCCs). But the application is not limited thereto.

In the above example, it is explained that the number of antenna element groups included in one antenna port is 2, and the different antenna element groups are orthogonalized by using the OCC sequence, that is, the orthogonal weighting sequence group (or orthogonal code) is [1,1] and [1, -1].

The above scheme may be extended to more antenna element groups, and when one antenna port includes N antenna element groups, the network device may transmit the reference signal through the N antenna element groups in N time units, and then the transmission signal of the nth time unit may be denoted as:

z[n]＝a ₁ [n]·x[n]+...+a _k [n]·x[n]+...+a _N [n]·x[n]，

the nth element of the orthogonal weighting sequence of the kth antenna element group can be denoted as a _k [n]。

For example, one antenna port includes 4 antenna element groups, and orthogonal sequence groups (or orthogonal codes) corresponding to the 4 antenna element groups may be [1,1], [1, -1, -1], [1, -1, -1] and [1, -1,1] respectively. However, the present application is not limited to this, and other sequences may also be used between different antenna element groups to implement orthogonalization, for example, a Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) sequence may be used, and when one antenna port includes N antenna element groups, the kth term of the orthogonal sequence of the nth antenna element group may be: exp (-j 2x pi x k x N/N) or exp (j 2x pi k x N/N), k = 0.

Optionally, a time difference between two adjacent time units of the plurality of time units is less than a threshold, or two adjacent time units of the plurality of time units are consecutive in time. By way of example and not limitation, a time unit may be an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbol, or group of symbols.

S602, the network device receives first information from the terminal device, where the first information is used to indicate channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna unit groups.

After acquiring the channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna unit groups in S601, the terminal device may send first information to the network device, so as to feed back the channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna unit groups to the network device.

Optionally, the channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups includes phase weighting information corresponding to at least one antenna element group in the multiple antenna element groups, where the phase weighting information is used for the network device to control phase shift of the phase shifter of the at least one antenna element group.

For M antenna element groups included in one antenna port of the network device, after receiving the reference signals from the M antenna element groups, the terminal device may report the M-dimensional phase weighting sequences corresponding to the M antenna element groups. If the network device includes N antenna ports and each antenna port includes M antenna element groups, after the terminal device receives the reference signals of the N · M antenna element groups from the N antenna ports, the terminal device may report an M-dimensional phase weighting sequence corresponding to each antenna port of the N antenna ports.

The terminal device may determine, based on the reference signal, an M-dimensional phase weighting sequence corresponding to the M antenna element groups of the nth digital port, where the M-dimensional phase weighting sequence may be denoted as p _n :

Optionally, the phase weighting sequence p _n One element in the phase weighted value is a phase weighted value corresponding to one antenna unit group, and one phase weighted value is a phase weighted value corresponding to a wideband or a full bandwidth, that is, a frequency domain granularity of reporting the phase weighted value to the network device by the terminal device is the wideband or the full bandwidth, that is, the terminal device reports a unique phase weighted value corresponding to a certain frequency domain range (the certain frequency domain range may be referred to as the wideband or the full bandwidth) to the network device, where the certain frequency domain range may be a bandwidth occupied by CSI-RS corresponding to the phase weighted value, or a bandwidth of a bandwidth part (BWP), or a carrier bandwidth.

Optionally, the phase weighting information corresponding to at least one antenna unit group included in the first information may include the M-dimensional phase weighting sequence corresponding to one antenna port, or may include identification information corresponding to the M-dimensional phase weighting sequence.

For example, a protocol may specify a candidate set that includes a plurality of candidate phase weighting sequences or phase weighting values. The terminal device may determine, according to the M-dimensional phase weighting sequence, a phase weighting sequence or a phase weighting value corresponding to the M-dimensional phase weighting sequence in the candidate set, and notify the network device through the first information including identification information of the phase weighting sequence or identification information of the phase weighting value corresponding to the M-dimensional phase weighting sequence. After receiving the first information, the network device may determine, in the candidate set, an M-dimensional phase weighting sequence corresponding to the antenna port based on the identification information.

Optionally, the channel information of the multiple antenna element groups includes precoding matrix indexes PMIs corresponding to multiple antenna ports, and the multiple antenna ports include the multiple antenna element groups.

The terminal device may determine that channels corresponding to the N antenna ports may support transmission of v data streams based on reference signals from the N antenna ports of the network device (which may be reference signals from multiple antenna element groups of the N antenna ports). The terminal device may report the N · v dimensional precoding matrix, or may be referred to as digital weighting information, to the network device for the network device to perform digital signal processing on the data stream. The precoding matrix determined by the terminal device based on the channel information may be denoted as q:

after the terminal device determines that the channel information of the multiple antenna element groups includes the precoding matrix q corresponding to the multiple antenna ports, the PMI of the precoding matrix may be determined in a precoding matrix set. The first information includes the PMI.

In one embodiment, the terminal device may report the phase weighting information and the PMI separately. The phase weighting information may be carried in the same message or in different messages.

Or, the terminal device reports two levels of weight information to the network device, where one level is phase weighting information and the other level is digital weighting information. However, this is not a limitation in the present application.

In another embodiment, the terminal device may combine the phase weighting sequence and the digital weighting information, and feed back combining weight information to the network device, where the combining weight information may include a combining weight of each antenna element group. The combining weight information may be expressed as:

the terminal device may further send second information to the network device, where the second information includes one or more of the following information corresponding to the multiple antenna ports:

signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR), reference signal received power RSRP, layer 1 signal to interference plus noise ratio L1-SINR, layer 1 reference signal received power L1-RSRP, channel Quality Indication (CQI), and/or Rank Indication (RI).

For example, the terminal device may further obtain one or more of the above information based on measuring the reference signals from the multiple antenna ports, and feed back the information to the network device, so that the network device performs data transmission with reference to the above information.

In a possible implementation, the first information and the second information are associated, or the second information is based on the first information.

Accordingly, the network device may receive the second information from the terminal device.

Optionally, both the first information and the second information may be sent as CSI from the terminal device to the network device. The first information and the second information may be carried in the same CSI report or different CSI reports, which is not limited in this application.

The same CSI report may be a CSI report carried on one uplink channel (e.g., physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH)) or Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH)). The different CSI reports may be CSI reports of uplink channels carried in different uplink channels or different time units. But the application is not limited thereto.

According to the scheme, the network equipment can send the reference signal to the terminal equipment through the plurality of antenna unit groups of the antenna port, so that the terminal equipment can obtain higher-precision channel information and provide the accuracy of channel information feedback. And the terminal equipment can determine appropriate phase weighting information based on the acquired higher-precision channel information and feed back the appropriate phase weighting information to the network equipment, and the network equipment can control the phase of the phase shifter based on the phase weighting information and determine a downlink transmission beam. The scheme provided by the application can avoid adopting a large amount of resources to carry out beam training to determine the sending beam, reduce the resource overhead and improve the resource utilization rate.

Example two

Fig. 15 is a schematic flowchart of a channel information acquiring method according to embodiment two of the present application.

S1501, the network device sends reference signals to the terminal device through the N antenna ports, and the beam directions of the reference signals sent by the antenna ports are the same.

Accordingly, the terminal device receives a plurality of reference signals from the network device.

Optionally, the N antenna ports may transmit the reference signal to the terminal device in one of a Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) mode, a TDM mode, a TD-CDM mode, or a frequency domain code division multiplexing (FD-CDM) mode.

In one possible implementation, the N antenna ports may correspond to one CSI-RS resource.

The N antenna ports may correspond to one CSI-RS resource, which may be understood as that the network device transmits CSI-RS on the one CSI-RS resource through the corresponding N antenna ports.

In another possible implementation, the N antenna ports correspond to multiple CSI-RS resources.

That is, the network device transmits the CSI-RS on at least one of the plurality of CSI-RS resources through at least one of the N antenna ports. Or the network device transmits the CSI-RS on the multiple CSI-RS resources, which shares N antenna ports.

For example, the N antenna ports correspond to N CSI-RS resources, and each of the N CSI-RS resources corresponds to one antenna port. Wherein the network device may transmit the reference signal on one of the N CSI-RS resources through one of the N antenna ports.

The network device configures the terminal device to measure the CSI-RS resources corresponding to the N antenna ports, and when the N antenna ports correspond to different CSI-RS resources, the network device may indicate that the CSI-RS resources have the same transmit beam direction.

For example, the network device may indicate that the multiple CSI-RS resources have the same QCL type D relationship, or that the multiple CSI-RS resources belong to one resource set, and the network device indicates that the CSI-RS resources in the CSI-RS set have a repetition relationship, for example, the repetition of the configuration parameter in the configuration information of the resource set is set to "on", that is, the resource repetition is configured to an on state, indicating that the beam directions of the transmission beams of the CSI-RS resources in the resource set are the same.

S1502, the network device receives first information from the terminal device, where the first information is used to indicate phase weighting information corresponding to multiple antenna ports of the network device, and the phase weighting information is used to control phase shifts of phase shifters of the antenna ports.

In S1502, the terminal device determines phase weighting information corresponding to a plurality of antenna ports of the network device according to the received plurality of reference signals, and sends first information to the network device, where the first information is used to indicate the phase weighting information corresponding to the plurality of antenna ports.

Two cases that N antenna ports of the network device correspond to N CSI-RS resources and N antenna ports correspond to M CSI-RS resources are described below.

Case 1,n antenna ports correspond to N CSI-RS resources.

The N CSI-RS resources are respectively resources in N time units, the network equipment sends CSI-RS on the N CSI-RS resources through N antenna ports in the N time units, correspondingly, the terminal equipment sequentially measures the N CSI-RS resources in the N time units to obtain channel information of an antenna port corresponding to each CSI-RS resource in the N CSI-RS resources, and then the channel information corresponding to the N antenna ports is obtained.

Alternatively, the N time cells may be N consecutive time domain symbols. E.g., N consecutive OFDM symbols.

The terminal device may determine, according to the measured channel information corresponding to the N antenna ports, a phase weighted value corresponding to each antenna port of the N antenna ports, and obtain a phase weighted sequence corresponding to the N antenna ports, which may be written as:

the phase weighting sequence includes N elements, where one element is a phase weight corresponding to one antenna port determined by the terminal device, and the phase weighting sequence may also be referred to as an N-dimensional combining weight sequence corresponding to the N antenna ports.

The first information sent by the terminal device to the network device includes the phase weighting sequences corresponding to the N antenna ports, or the terminal device determines corresponding identification information in a predefined phase weighting sequence candidate set according to the phase weighting sequences corresponding to the N antenna ports, where the first information includes the identification information. But the application is not limited thereto.

In a specific implementation, the network device may employ different antenna arrays (or antenna area arrays) to transmit N reference signals to the terminal device on the N reference resources at different time instants, and beams transmitting the N reference signals have the same or close directions (or are referred to as pointing directions).

For example, as shown in fig. 16, the network device may include two antenna arrays, where one antenna array corresponds to one antenna port, and the network device sends a reference signal 1 to the terminal device at a reference signal resource 1 through one antenna array in a first time unit, that is, both polarization directions of the antenna array send the reference signal 1, and the two polarization directions form a beam to send the reference signal; and transmitting a reference signal 2 to the terminal equipment at a reference signal resource 2 through another antenna array in a second time unit, wherein the direction of the beam for transmitting the reference signal 1 by the network equipment is the same as or close to the direction of the beam for transmitting the reference signal 2. Alternatively, the network device may transmit the reference signal using a spread beam (non-DFT beam).

Optionally, the terminal device may perform receive beam training in the multiple time units through the N antenna ports.

Because the network equipment sends a plurality of CSI-RSs in the same beam direction, the terminal equipment can perform self receiving beam training in a plurality of time units through the antenna ports of the N CSI-RSs to determine the receiving beam for the communication between the terminal equipment and the network equipment, and the time overhead and the resource overhead can be reduced.

Case 2,n antenna ports correspond to M CSI-RS resources.

Taking N =2M as an example, that is, each CSI-RS resource in the M CSI-RS resources includes two antenna ports, namely, a first antenna port and a second antenna port, the network device sends the M CSI-RS resources through M time units, and one time unit in the M time units sends CSI-RS to the terminal device through the two antenna ports of one CSI-RS resource.

The terminal device determines phase weighting sequences, or called combining weight sequences, corresponding to the M first antenna ports and the M second antenna ports, and reports the phase weighting sequences to the network device. The phase weighting sequences corresponding to the M antenna ports can be written as:

where i =0 represents a phase weighting sequence corresponding to M first antenna ports, and i =1 represents a phase weighting sequence corresponding to M second antenna ports.

In a possible implementation manner, the terminal device may report, to the network device, phase weighting sequences corresponding to the M first antenna ports and phase weighting sequences corresponding to the M second antenna ports, respectively, or the terminal device may report, to the network device, a combining weighting sequence that is a sequence obtained by combining the phase weighting sequences corresponding to the M first antenna ports and the phase weighting sequences corresponding to the M second antenna ports.

The first information sent by the terminal device to the network device includes the phase weighting sequences corresponding to the M first antenna ports and the phase weighting sequences corresponding to the M second antenna ports, or the first information includes the combining weighting sequence, or the first information includes identification information, where the identification information is used to identify the phase weighting sequences corresponding to the M first antenna ports and the phase weighting sequences corresponding to the M second antenna ports or to identify the combining weighting sequences. But the application is not limited thereto.

In a specific implementation, the network device may employ different antenna arrays (alternatively referred to as antenna area arrays) to transmit the M reference signals on the M reference signal resources at different time instants, and beams transmitting the M reference signal resources have the same or close pointing directions.

For example, as shown in fig. 17, the network device may include two antenna arrays, where two polarization directions of one antenna array correspond to two antenna ports, and the two antenna arrays include 4 antenna ports in total. The network device may send, in a first time unit, a reference signal 1 to the terminal device on a reference signal resource 1 through an antenna array, where antenna ports of two polarization directions of the antenna array correspond to two antenna ports of the reference signal resource 1. The network device transmits a reference signal 2 to the terminal device on a reference signal resource 2 through another antenna array in a second time unit. The directions of the beams of the M reference signal resources transmitted by the network equipment are the same or close. Optionally, the network device transmits the reference signal using a spread beam (non-DFT beam).

Optionally, in both cases, the terminal device may further send second information to the network device, where the second information includes one or more of the following information of the multiple antenna ports:

signal to interference plus noise ratio SINR, reference signal received power RSRP, layer 1 signal to interference plus noise ratio L1-SINR, layer 1 reference signal received power L1-RSRP, channel quality indication CQI and/or rank indication RI.

Optionally, the second information includes channel state information corresponding to the N antenna ports, for example, L1-RSRP information corresponding to the N antenna ports.

Optionally, the second information is associated with a phase weighting sequence reported by the terminal, or the second information is based on the phase weighting sequence reported by the terminal. For example, the reported L1-RSRP is associated with the reported phase weight sequence, or the reported L1-RSRP is based on the reported phase weight sequence.

According to the scheme, the network device can adopt the expanded beams to transmit the reference signals, so that resource overhead caused by the fact that the reference signals are transmitted to the terminal device through the multiple beams can be reduced, the network device can determine the phase weighted value of the narrow beams which serve the terminal device by the network device after acquiring the phase weighted sequence fed back by the terminal device, and the service beams can be rapidly determined under the condition that the resource overhead of beam training is reduced.

The method provided by the embodiment of the present application is described in detail above with reference to fig. 2 to 17. The following describes an apparatus provided in an embodiment of the present application. In order to implement the functions in the method provided by the embodiments of the present application, each network element may include a hardware structure and/or a software module, and the functions are implemented in the form of a hardware structure, a software module, or a hardware structure plus a software module. Whether any of the above functions is implemented as a hardware structure, a software module, or a combination of a hardware structure and a software module depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the technical solution.

Fig. 18 is a schematic block diagram of a communication device provided in an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 18, the communications device 1800 may include a processing unit 1810 and a transceiver 1820.

In one possible design, the communication apparatus 1800 may correspond to the terminal device in the above method embodiment, or a chip configured in (or used in) the terminal device, or other apparatus, module, circuit, unit or the like capable of implementing the method of the terminal device.

A transceiving unit for receiving a plurality of reference signals from a network device; a processing unit, configured to determine channel information corresponding to multiple antenna element groups of the network device according to the multiple reference signals, where at least two antenna element groups of the multiple antenna element groups belong to one antenna port; the transceiving unit is further configured to send first information to the network device, where the first information is used to indicate channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna unit groups.

Optionally, the plurality of antenna element groups belong to one antenna port, or one of the plurality of antenna element groups belongs to one antenna port.

Optionally, the multiple antenna unit groups belong to one antenna port, and the transceiver unit is specifically configured to receive the multiple reference signals from the network device in multiple time units.

Optionally, the transceiver unit is specifically configured to receive, in one of a plurality of time units, a reference signal from the network device, where the reference signal is transmitted through one of a plurality of antenna unit groups, and the reference signals received by different time units in the plurality of time units are from different antenna unit groups in the plurality of antenna unit groups.

Optionally, the transceiver unit is specifically configured to receive the plurality of reference signals in each of a plurality of time units.

Optionally, the processing unit is specifically configured to determine channel information of the multiple antenna element groups according to the multiple reference signals, the number of the multiple antenna element groups, and the weighting sequences corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups.

Optionally, the channel information of the multiple antenna unit groups includes digital weighting information of the antenna ports, where the digital weighting information is used for the network device to perform digital signal processing on signals to be transmitted at the antenna ports to which the multiple antenna unit groups belong.

Optionally, the channel information of the multiple antenna element groups includes weighted combining information corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups, where the weighted combining information is weighted information obtained by combining phase weighted information corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups and PMIs corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups, and the phase weighted information is used for the network device to control the phase shift of the phase shifter of the at least one antenna element group.

Optionally, the transceiver unit is specifically configured to further receive configuration information from the network device, where the configuration information is used to indicate an antenna unit group included in at least one antenna port of the network device.

Optionally, the transceiver unit is further configured to send second information to the network device, where the second information includes one or more of the following information of the plurality of antenna element groups: signal to interference plus noise ratio SINR, reference signal received power RSRP, channel quality indication CQI and/or rank indication RI. It is to be understood that the communication apparatus 1800 may correspond to the terminal device in the

methods

600, 1500 according to embodiments of the application, and that the communication apparatus 1800 may comprise means for performing the methods performed by the terminal device in the

methods

600, 1500 in fig. 6, 15. Also, the units and other operations and/or functions in the communication device 1800 are respectively for realizing the corresponding flows of the

methods

600, 1500 in fig. 6, 15.

Optionally, the communications apparatus 1800 may also include a processing unit 1810, where the processing unit 1810 may be used to process instructions or data to implement corresponding operations.

It should also be understood that, when the communication apparatus 1800 is a chip configured in (or used in) a terminal device, the transceiver 1820 in the communication apparatus 1800 may be an input/output interface or circuit of the chip, and the processing unit 1810 in the communication apparatus 1800 may be a processor in the chip.

Optionally, the communications apparatus 1800 may further include a storage unit 1830, where the storage unit 1830 may be used to store instructions or data, and the processing unit 1810 may execute the instructions or data stored in the storage unit to enable the communications apparatus to implement corresponding operations.

It should be understood that the transceiving unit 1820 in the communication device 1800 may be implemented by a communication interface (e.g., a transceiver or an input/output interface), for example, may correspond to the transceiver 1910 in the terminal device 1900 shown in fig. 19. The processing unit 1810 in the communication apparatus 1800 may be implemented by at least one processor, for example, may correspond to the processor 1920 in the terminal device 1900 shown in fig. 19. The processing unit 1810 in the communications device 1800 may also be implemented by at least one logic circuit. The storage unit 1830 in the communication apparatus 1800 may correspond to a memory in the terminal device 1900 shown in fig. 19.

It should also be understood that the specific processes of the units for executing the corresponding steps are already described in detail in the above method embodiments, and therefore, for brevity, detailed descriptions thereof are omitted here.

In another possible design, the communication apparatus 1800 may correspond to the network device in the above method embodiments, for example, or a chip configured in (or used in) the network device, or other apparatus, module, circuit, or unit capable of implementing the method of the network device.

A transceiving unit, configured to transmit a reference signal to a terminal device through a plurality of antenna unit groups, where at least two antenna unit groups of the plurality of antenna unit groups belong to one antenna port; the transceiving unit is further configured to receive first information from the terminal device, where the first information is used to indicate channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups; and the processing unit is used for determining the channel information corresponding to the plurality of antenna unit groups according to the first information.

Optionally, the multiple antenna unit groups belong to one antenna port, and the transceiver unit is specifically configured to transmit the reference signal to the terminal device in multiple time units through the multiple antenna unit groups.

Optionally, the transceiver unit is specifically configured to transmit, in one of the multiple time units, a reference signal to the terminal device through one of the multiple antenna unit groups, where antenna unit groups that transmit the reference signal in different time units of the multiple time units are different.

Optionally, the transceiver unit is specifically configured to send, in each of the multiple time units, a reference signal to the terminal device through the multiple antenna unit groups, where phase weighting sequences corresponding to different antenna unit groups in the multiple antenna unit groups are orthogonal to each other, and an element in one of the phase weighting sequences is a phase weighting value corresponding to one antenna unit group in one time unit.

Optionally, a time difference between two adjacent time units of the plurality of time units is less than a threshold, or two adjacent time units of the plurality of time units are consecutive in time.

Optionally, the channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna element groups includes precoding matrix indexes PMIs corresponding to multiple antenna ports, and the multiple antenna ports include the multiple antenna element groups.

Optionally, the transceiver unit is further configured to send configuration information to the terminal device, where the configuration information is used to indicate an antenna unit group included in at least one antenna port of the network device.

Optionally, the transceiver unit is further configured to receive second information from the terminal device, where the second information includes one or more of the following information of the plurality of antenna element groups: signal to interference noise ratio, SINR, reference signal received power, RSRP, channel quality indication, CQI, and/or rank indication, RI.

It should be understood that the communication apparatus 1800 may correspond to the network device in the

methods

600, 1500 according to the embodiments of the application, and that the communication apparatus 1800 may include means for performing the methods performed by the network device in the

methods

600, 1500 in fig. 6, 15. Also, the units and other operations and/or functions described above in the communication device 1800 are for implementing the corresponding flows of the

methods

600, 1500 in fig. 6, 15, respectively.

It should also be understood that when the communication apparatus 1800 is a chip configured (or used) in a network device, the transceiver 1820 in the communication apparatus 1800 may be an input/output interface or circuit of the chip, and the processing unit 1810 in the communication apparatus 1800 may be a processor in the chip.

It should be understood that when the communication apparatus 1800 is a network device, the transceiver 1820 in the communication apparatus 1800 may be implemented by a communication interface (such as a transceiver or an input/output interface), for example, may correspond to the transceiver 2010 in the network device 2000 shown in fig. 20. The processing unit 1810 of the communications apparatus 1800 may be implemented by at least one processor, for example, the processing unit 1810 of the communications apparatus 1800 may be implemented by at least one logic circuit, which may correspond to the processor 2020 of the network device 2000 shown in fig. 20.

Fig. 19 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device 1900 according to an embodiment of the present application. The terminal device 1900 may be applied to the system shown in fig. 1, and performs the functions of the terminal device in the above-described method embodiment. As shown, the terminal device 1900 includes a processor 1920 and a transceiver 1910. Optionally, the terminal device 1900 further includes a memory. The processor 1920, the transceiver 1910 and the memory can communicate with each other via the internal connection path to transfer control and/or data signals. The memory is used for storing computer programs, and the processor 1920 is used for executing the computer programs in the memory to control the transceiver 1910 to transmit and receive signals.

The processor 1920 may be combined with a memory to form a processing device, and the processor 1920 may be configured to execute program codes stored in the memory to implement the functions described above. In particular implementations, the memory may also be integrated within the processor 1920 or separate from the processor 1920. The processor 1920 may correspond to the processing unit in fig. 18.

The transceiver 1910 may correspond to a transceiving unit in fig. 18. The transceiver 1910 may include a receiver (or receiver, receiving circuitry) and a transmitter (or transmitter, transmitting circuitry). Wherein the receiver is used for receiving signals, and the transmitter is used for transmitting signals.

It should be understood that the terminal device 1900 shown in fig. 19 can implement the processes related to the terminal device in the method embodiments shown in fig. 6 and 15. The operations and/or functions of the modules in the terminal device 1900 are respectively for implementing the corresponding flows in the foregoing method embodiments. Reference may be made specifically to the description of the above method embodiments, and a detailed description is omitted here where appropriate to avoid repetition.

The processor 1920 can be configured to perform the actions described in the foregoing method embodiments, which are implemented by the terminal device, and the transceiver 1910 can be configured to perform the actions described in the foregoing method embodiments, which are transmitted by the terminal device to the network device or received by the terminal device from the network device. Please refer to the description of the previous embodiment of the method, which is not repeated herein.

Optionally, the terminal 1900 may further include a power supply for supplying power to various devices or circuits in the terminal.

In addition, in order to further improve the functions of the terminal device, the terminal device 1900 may further include an input/output device, such as one or more of an input unit, a display unit, an audio circuit, a camera, a sensor, and the like, and the audio circuit may further include a speaker, a microphone, and the like.

Fig. 6 and fig. 15 are schematic structural diagrams of a network device according to an embodiment of the present application, where the network device 2000 may be applied to the system shown in fig. 1, and executes the functions of the network device in the foregoing method embodiments. As shown in fig. 6 and 15, the network device 2000 includes a processor 2020 and a transceiver 2010. Optionally, the network device 2000 further comprises a memory. The processor 2020, the transceiver 2010, and the memory may communicate with one another via the interconnection paths to convey control and/or data signals. The memory is used for storing computer programs, and the processor 2020 is used for executing the computer programs in the memory to control the transceiver 2010 to transmit and receive signals.

The processor 2020 and the memory may be combined into a processing device, and the processor 2020 is configured to execute the program code stored in the memory to implement the functions described above. In particular implementations, the memory may be integrated within the processor 2020, or may be separate from the processor 2020. The processor 2020 may correspond to the processing unit in fig. 18.

The transceiver 2010 described above may correspond to the transceiving unit in fig. 18. The transceiver 2010 may include a receiver (or receiver, receiving circuit) and a transmitter (or transmitter, transmitting circuit). Wherein the receiver is used for receiving signals, and the transmitter is used for transmitting signals.

It should be understood that the network device 2000 shown in fig. 6 and 15 can implement various processes involving the network device in the method embodiments shown in fig. 6 and 15. The operations and/or functions of the modules in the network device 2000 are respectively to implement the corresponding flows in the above-described method embodiments. Reference may be made specifically to the description of the above method embodiments, and a detailed description is omitted here where appropriate to avoid repetition.

It should be understood that the network device 2000 shown in fig. 6 and fig. 15 may be an eNB or a gNB, or alternatively, the network device includes network devices of CUs, DUs, and AAUs, or the like, and the CUs may be specifically divided into CUs-CP and CU-UP. The present application is not limited to the specific architecture of the network device.

It should be understood that the network device 2000 shown in fig. 6, 15 may be a CU node or a CU-CP node.

The processor 2020 may be configured to perform the actions described in the foregoing method embodiments as being implemented within the network device, and the transceiver 2010 may be configured to perform the actions described in the foregoing method embodiments as being transmitted to or received from the terminal device by the network device. Please refer to the description of the previous embodiment of the method, which is not repeated herein.

The embodiment of the application also provides a processing device, which comprises a processor and a (communication) interface; the processor is configured to perform the method of any of the method embodiments described above.

It is to be understood that the processing means described above may be one or more chips. For example, the processing device may be a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a system on chip (SoC), a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Network Processor (NP), a digital signal processing circuit (DSP), a Microcontroller (MCU), a Programmable Logic Device (PLD), or other integrated chips.

According to the method provided by the embodiment of the present application, the present application further provides a computer program product, which includes: computer program code which, when executed by one or more processors, causes an apparatus comprising the processor to perform the method in the embodiments shown in fig. 6, 15.

The technical solutions provided in the embodiments of the present application may be wholly or partially implemented by software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, it may be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions. When loaded and executed on a computer, cause the processes or functions described in accordance with the embodiments of the invention to be performed in whole or in part. The computer may be a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, a computer network, a network appliance, a terminal appliance, a core network appliance, a machine learning appliance, or other programmable apparatus. The computer instructions may be stored on a computer readable storage medium or transmitted from one computer readable storage medium to another, for example, from one website, computer, server, or data center to another website, computer, server, or data center via wire (e.g., coaxial cable, fiber optic, digital Subscriber Line (DSL)) or wireless (e.g., infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.). The computer-readable storage medium can be any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or a data storage device, such as a server, a data center, etc., that includes one or more available media. The usable medium may be a magnetic medium (e.g., a floppy disk, a hard disk, a magnetic tape), an optical medium (e.g., a Digital Video Disc (DVD)), or a semiconductor medium, among others.

According to the method provided by the embodiment of the present application, the present application further provides a computer-readable storage medium storing program code, which when executed by one or more processors causes an apparatus including the processors to execute the method in the embodiment shown in fig. 6 and 15.

According to the method provided by the embodiment of the present application, the present application further provides a system, which includes the foregoing one or more network devices. The system may further comprise one or more of the terminal devices described above.

In the several embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed system, apparatus and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the above-described apparatus embodiments are merely illustrative, and for example, the division of the units is only one logical division, and other divisions may be realized in practice, for example, a plurality of units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not executed. In addition, the shown or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be an indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or units, and may be in an electrical, mechanical or other form.

The units described as separate parts may or may not be physically separate, and parts displayed as units may or may not be physical units, may be located in one place, or may be distributed on a plurality of network units. Some or all of the units can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of the embodiment.

The above description is only for the specific embodiments of the present application, but the scope of the present application is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art can easily conceive of the changes or substitutions within the technical scope of the present application, and shall be covered by the scope of the present application. Therefore, the protection scope of the present application shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method for acquiring channel information, comprising:

the network equipment transmits a reference signal to the terminal equipment through a plurality of antenna unit groups, wherein at least two antenna unit groups in the plurality of antenna unit groups belong to one antenna port;

and the network equipment receives first information from the terminal equipment, wherein the first information is used for indicating channel information corresponding to the plurality of antenna unit groups.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the channel information corresponding to the plurality of antenna element groups comprises phase weighting information corresponding to at least one antenna element group of the plurality of antenna element groups, and wherein the phase weighting information is used by the network device to control phase shifts of phase shifters of the at least one antenna element group.

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the plurality of antenna element groups belong to one antenna port, or that one of the plurality of antenna element groups belongs to one antenna port.

4. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the plurality of antenna element groups belong to one antenna port, and the network device transmits the reference signal to the terminal device through the plurality of antenna element groups, comprising:

and the network equipment transmits the reference signals to the terminal equipment in a plurality of time units through the plurality of antenna unit groups.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the network device transmits the reference signal to the terminal device in multiple time units through the multiple antenna element groups, comprising:

and the network equipment transmits a reference signal to the terminal equipment through one antenna unit group in the plurality of antenna unit groups in one time unit in the plurality of time units, wherein the antenna unit groups for transmitting the reference signal in different time units in the plurality of time units are different.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the network device transmits the reference signal to the terminal device in multiple time units through the multiple antenna element groups, comprising:

the network device sends a reference signal to the terminal device through the multiple antenna unit groups in each of the multiple time units, weighting sequences corresponding to different antenna unit groups in the multiple antenna unit groups are orthogonal to each other, and one element in one weighting sequence is a phase weighting value corresponding to one antenna unit group in one time unit.

7. The method according to any one of claims 4 to 6, wherein a time difference between two adjacent time units of the plurality of time units is less than a threshold value or two adjacent time units of the plurality of time units are consecutive in time.

8. The method according to any of claims 1 to 7, wherein the channel information corresponding to the plurality of antenna element groups comprises precoding matrix indices, PMIs, corresponding to a plurality of antenna ports, including the plurality of antenna element groups.

9. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 8, further comprising:

and the network equipment sends configuration information to the terminal equipment, wherein the configuration information is used for indicating an antenna unit group contained in at least one antenna port of the network equipment.

10. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 9, further comprising:

the network device receives second information from the terminal device, wherein the second information comprises one or more of the following information of the plurality of antenna unit groups:

signal to interference plus noise ratio SINR, reference signal received power RSRP, channel quality indication CQI and/or rank indication RI.

11. A method of channel measurement, comprising:

the terminal equipment receives a plurality of reference signals from the network equipment;

the terminal device determines channel information corresponding to a plurality of antenna unit groups of the network device according to the plurality of reference signals, wherein at least two antenna unit groups of the plurality of antenna unit groups belong to one antenna port;

and the terminal equipment sends first information to the network equipment, wherein the first information is used for indicating channel information corresponding to the multiple antenna unit groups.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the channel information corresponding to the plurality of antenna element groups comprises Precoding Matrix Indexes (PMIs) corresponding to a plurality of antenna ports, and wherein the plurality of antenna ports comprises the plurality of antenna element groups.

13. The method according to claim 11 or 12, characterized in that the plurality of antenna element groups belong to one antenna port, or that one of the plurality of antenna element groups belongs to one antenna port.

14. The method according to any of claims 11 to 13, characterized in that the plurality of antenna element groups belong to one antenna port;

the terminal equipment receives a plurality of reference signals from network equipment, and comprises the following steps:

the terminal device receives the plurality of reference signals from the network device in a plurality of time units.

15. The method according to any one of claims 11 to 14, wherein the determining, by the terminal device, channel information corresponding to a plurality of antenna element groups of the network device according to the plurality of reference signals comprises:

and the terminal equipment determines channel information corresponding to the antenna unit groups according to the reference signals, the number of the antenna unit groups and the weighting sequences corresponding to the antenna unit groups.

16. The method according to any of claims 11-15, wherein the channel information corresponding to the plurality of antenna element groups comprises weighted combining information corresponding to the plurality of antenna element groups, the weighted combining information being weighted information after combining phase weighting information corresponding to the plurality of antenna element groups with PMIs corresponding to the plurality of antenna element groups,

wherein the phase weighting information is used by the network device to control phase shifts of phase shifters of the at least one antenna element group.

17. The method according to any one of claims 11 to 16, further comprising:

the terminal device receives configuration information from the network device, where the configuration information is used to indicate an antenna unit group included in at least one antenna port of the network device.

18. The method according to any one of claims 11 to 17, further comprising:

the terminal device sends second information to the network device, wherein the second information comprises one or more of the following information of the plurality of antenna unit groups:

signal to interference noise ratio, SINR, reference signal received power, RSRP, channel quality indication, CQI, and/or rank indication, RI.

19. A communications device comprising at least one processor coupled to a memory;

the memory is used for storing programs or instructions;

the at least one processor is configured to execute the programs or instructions to cause the apparatus to implement the method of any of claims 1-18.

20. A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions which, when executed on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 18.

21. A computer program product comprising instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 18.